In perhaps what should be taken in the strictest definition of a rumor, one Xlr8yourmac.com post indicates that one Apple engineer suggested that the PowerMac G5's may be difficult to upgrade (Processors) due to the cooling/venting requirements:<br><br>One thing he said is that it will be extremely difficult to upgrade the chips in this machine. Each computer is uniquely paired with its processors to have perfect venting. Changing out processors would throw off the chip that handles the G5 cooling, resulting in (at best) the computer running for a while then shutting off, or (at worst) a non-booting machine.<br><br>Another submission claims that each system (including support chips for the 970) require custom calibration for the fans to work properly, making CPU replacements very difficult. <br><br>Obviously, more information will become available in the months to come, as machines become available and upgrade vendors gain access to these machines. <br><br>

Show of hands of how many people upgrade their processors?<br><br><br><br>sound of crickets chirping. . . . .<br><br><br><br>If you get a dual G5 you'll be very happy and not think of upgrading. . .<br><br>

I upgraded a Quadra 650, PowerCenter 132 and Beige G3 233... though with a G5, I doubt I would have to upgrade the processor, but some folks like to get a computer and upgrade it until it falls apart from old age.<br><br>

Well, even if you wanted to upgrade the processor... I see some other problems you might encounter, like the memory speed. The bus of the processor (1ghz) runs in perfect harmony with the memory transfer speed. Most likely they will be coming out with a faster memory too in the future processors. Also, once factor that slows down your mac alot is the HDD transfer rate. HDDs are way behind! With the new processors, you pretty much would need SCSI 170 or up in order to keep up with the speed. Even Raid doesn't do it anymore. Apple made a big step backwards going to ATA! And even ATA 100 on the G4, not even 133!<br><br>So in other words, upgrading the processor, sometimes it's just $$ thrown out the window in order to be able to show off in front of frieds on how fast your processor is. Most people don't look at HDD speed, memory speed, and of course Video Card Speed. <br>The new G5 will have 8X AGP, compared to the 4X on the G4. And who knows whats next.<br><br>These days, just get a new machine every 2 years and trash the old machine on e-bay!<br><br>___________________________________________<br><br>I'm just another Mac user at an 8 hour day Dilbert style cubicle job....

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_________________________________________"The United States is by far the largest exporter of weapons in the world, selling more weapons than the next 14 countries combined."

Just posting the news... I personally have no plans to do processor upgrades anymore. They were viable in G3 and older machines... and still are for some people who like to prolong their original investment, but I just assume wait til I can afford a completely new machine now.<br><br>

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